


I Don't Know When To Tell You...

by barns_bucky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes-centric, LGBTQ Character, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Pining Bucky Barnes, demiromantic bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:23:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6960586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barns_bucky/pseuds/barns_bucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes has always loved Steve... as a friend. At least, that's what he thought. Until one day he gets to really looking at Steve, really thinking about him, and before he even has time to process it... he realizes he's in love with his best friend. As in, he loves him wholly and unconditionally. But... what does he do with this new information? Surely he can't tell Steve, not now. So he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Know When To Tell You...

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be writing a full blown fic about demiromantic Bucky Barnes as soon as I wrap up my big bang fic.  
> inspo can be found [here](http://marauderstrio.tumblr.com/post/144433821925/how-do-you-feel-about-demiromantic-bucky-like)

Bucky can woo girls and impress their dads, and he can leave an impression. He can take them out on romantic dates and make it mean something, because he’s _always_ trying to make it mean something. If you want to know the honest truth, he likes these girls as _friends_ but he can’t imagine anything romantic between them. He tries so hard - so unbelievably hard - to feel something towards the girls because he feels he owes them that and his family that, but he _can’t._

There’s nothing there. When he looks at them, he doesn’t feel this overwhelming desire to spend the rest of his life with them doing terribly mundane things such as cooking, dancing, watching films, and all that good stuff.

The only person he’s felt _that_   _way_  towards is Steve, but that’s his _friend_ and besides- you can’t love your guy friend in _that way._ But he does. It’s a slow realization and it hits him like a ton of bricks that he _really_ loves Steve in _that way_ when he’s sitting beside the blond and watching him draw with his charcoal pencil-thing [he doesn’t really know what it’s called]. It’s while he’s watching Steve gently sketch out a face - a stranger’s face, a face that he glanced at perhaps once - on the paper that he realizes that he fucking _loves_ Steve.

He doesn’t just want to spend the rest of his life with him doing mundane things such as dancing and cooking together and watching shitty films. He wants to kiss him and hold his hand and cuddle with him and wake up to his face _every single day._ He would never tire of that face or hands or lips. He loves every bit of Steve. Including his shitty health.

Oh boy, he wants to tell Steve so bad but just like with those girls, he _can’t._ What will Steve think of him? Steve’s into girls and he couldn’t put that on Steve- it’s his problem. But, oh boy does he love him. So much. But he can’t tell him- he can’t push his problem onto Steve.

Which is why he doesn’t tell him.

He doesn’t tell him before he leaves to join the 107th Infantry under orders.

He doesn’t tell him when Steve - is he really Steve? He doesn’t look like skinny Steve - rescues him from the HYDRA facility.

He doesn’t tell him when they’re at the bar, getting shitfaced, because he can’t put that burden on Steve. Besides, he saw how Steve looked at Peggy Carter and he’d admit that she was stunning.

He doesn’t tell him when they leave on their own mission. He planned to tell him… maybe… if they made it out.

He wants to tell him when the railing slips as he falls. He wants to and he almost does, but how could he do that? He’s scared when he falls, as he falls, but he’s grateful that the last face he saw was Steve’s. That’s all he could ask for.

Except… he doesn’t die. Why? Why not? Was this his price to pay for loving Steve? For loving him unconditionally? He didn’t know.

Slowly, slowly, slowly… he began forgetting Steve and that scared him worse than any of the torture. He begged them - whoever they were - to let him keep Steve, because he didn’t care if he forgot everything else but he wanted to keep Steve. But… that was a memory that was stripped from him.

Then… then… he saw him and he could remember just a little. But who was he? Who was Bucky? Was that him? It must be him.

He left. He escaped. He was free, but the nightmares still haunted him. He’d never be free from them forever. Every time he closed his eyes, they were there. Every time he fell asleep, he’d always wake up in a puddle of sweat; screaming and crying and begging, until he realized that he was safe. In Bucharest. Away from them.

Then Steve found him and he tried hard to play off like he didn’t remember him, but Steve knew that was a lie. He always knew, but he didn’t know how much Bucky loved him. God, even after years of brainwashing and torture he still loved him. He loved him so goddamn much, but he wasn’t good enough for him. He’d never be good enough for him.

He considered telling him that he loved him after he dropped the shield for him, but he couldn’t because Steve didn’t love him like that. Steve loved him like a friend, like a brother. Not a lover. It hurt thinking about it. Hurt so fucking much and he wanted to cry, because he wanted Steve to love him in that way. And he hated himself every time he wished for that because it wasn’t fair for Steve- even if he didn’t know.

Cryo. He didn’t want to go back under, he wanted to stay with Steve, or stay in Wakanda. He just didn’t want to go back under, but he knew that it’d be safer if he did. He couldn’t trust himself, his mind, and as soon as someone said those seven code words, he was gone. He was a killing machine again. He was a soldier, “ready to comply”. It was selfish, he realized, to wish to not go back under, but goddammit he had the right to be selfish. Just not at the cost of everyone else’s safety.

The words “I love you” were on the tip of his tongue as he stared at Steve and God did he want to say them, tell him “I love you” over and over and over again until he couldn’t anymore. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

It was less than a year later that he came back up and he found Steve waiting on him. The words “I love you” were back on his tongue and he wanted to say it again. But he couldn’t.

It wasn’t until two years later while they were sitting on the couch in their shared apartment, eating Ramen noodles, and watching Friday Night Lights that he said “I love you.”

He had been sitting there in complete silence, pushing his noodles around in the bowl, and staring blankly at the television, thinking. Thirty minutes had passed with him like that before he twisted himself around to face Steve, settling his bowl in his lap, “Steve?” He was nervous, he was freaking the fuck out, and his heart was pounding in his chest as he stared at the other man. Sure, everyone said that Captain America was perfect and _fucking hot_ but no one saw Steve Rogers. At least, no one saw him how he saw him. Bucky recognized that Steve could lift a goddamn car if he wanted to, but he still saw him as the scrawny blond who’d never walk away from a fight, regardless of whether or not the odds were in his favor.

When he came back to his senses, blue eyes were focused on him and they looked worried. “I’m fine, Steve,” he said automatically and it was mostly out of habit, because he knew the other was constantly worrying about him despite the fact that he was always fine.

“I just…” he picked up his fork, spinning the noodles round and round the bowl again, trying to distract himself and gain the courage to just tell him. He had waited, what, seventy years? Eighty?

“I love you,” he shifted slightly in his seat and he sat there for a minute, staring at his bowl in shame, before he cast a look up at Steve to see him staring in utter shock. Steve’s mouth was hanging so far open that he could see his uvula swinging back and forth. That was a bit gross.

He guessed five minutes had passed before Steve finally snapped out of his trance-like state and spoke, “I know,” was all he said. It pissed him off a bit because what kind of response was _that_ but also… what was he expecting?

“No, Steve, you don’t-” he was facing the other now, his eyes half closed as he slowly breathed through his nose, trying to calm himself down because he had spent literal years trying to tell Steve this. “You don’t understand. I-” he wasn’t even given the opportunity to finish before he felt a gentle pressure on his lips and he realized that Steve - his _straight as a goddamn arrow_ Steve - was kissing him.

His frustration melted away suddenly because he realized that Steve did know and then it hit him that Steve felt the _exact same way._ For how long, though? As long as he had? He didn’t know and he didn’t know if he wanted to know.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, you can follow me on my [tumblr](marauderstrio.tumblr.com)


End file.
